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REIT Dividends Are Like Snowballs: All You Need Is Wet Snow And A Long Hill

Published Mon, 11 Mar 2013 05:37:36 -0400 on Seeking Alpha

Last week fellow Seeking Alpha writer David Van Knapp and I were both quick to defend a ridiculous article that was meant to derail the all important dividends paid by real estate investment trusts (REITs). As any "semi-intelligent" investor knows, REITs distribute (by law) at least 90 percent of their taxable income to shareholders annually in the form of dividends and that is what makes the 53 year-old asset sector so special. Accordingly, any company that qualifies as a REIT is permitted to deduct dividends paid to its shareholders from its corporate taxable income. But more often, most REITs remit at least 100 percent of their taxable income to their shareholders and therefore owe no corporate tax. In a previous Seeking Alpha article I explained the value proposition (for REITs):
It's not hard to see why investors are attracted to the idea of high-dividend-paying stocks. On the surface,...